The EU can do this?

I read this morning that "DSG International, the retailer formerly known as Dixons, has been drawn into the European Union's investigation of chipmaker giant Intel.

EU regulators - investigating claims that Intel abused its dominance of the market for central processing units (a key component in personal computers) - raided DSG International's offices in Hemel Hempstead as part of a Europe-wide investigation.

"I can confirm that officials from the EU Commission conducted an inspection at our Retail Support Centre in Hemel Hempstead," said a spokesman for DSG, which owns Currys and PC World."


Did you know that EU regulators had the powers to carry out this sort of raid? What other powers do they have they we do not know about? And why have the BBC, so far as I can tell, not covered this story? Oops I have just found this hidden away in the "More from business" section on the Business news page. Anyone would think the BBC were trying not to cover a story, too deeply, that shows the powers that the EU have, now why would they do that?